diff --git a/web_src/js/utils/dom.test.ts b/web_src/js/utils/dom.test.ts
index cb99a85511..6e71596850 100644
--- a/web_src/js/utils/dom.test.ts
+++ b/web_src/js/utils/dom.test.ts
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import {createElementFromAttrs, createElementFromHTML, querySingleVisibleElem} from './dom.ts';
+import {createElementFromAttrs, createElementFromHTML, queryElemChildren, querySingleVisibleElem} from './dom.ts';
 
 test('createElementFromHTML', () => {
   expect(createElementFromHTML('<a>foo<span>bar</span></a>').outerHTML).toEqual('<a>foo<span>bar</span></a>');
@@ -26,3 +26,9 @@ test('querySingleVisibleElem', () => {
   el = createElementFromHTML('<div><span>foo</span><span>bar</span></div>');
   expect(() => querySingleVisibleElem(el, 'span')).toThrowError('Expected exactly one visible element');
 });
+
+test('queryElemChildren', () => {
+  const el = createElementFromHTML('<div><span class="a">a</span><span class="b">b</span></div>');
+  const children = queryElemChildren(el, '.a');
+  expect(children.length).toEqual(1);
+});
diff --git a/web_src/js/utils/dom.ts b/web_src/js/utils/dom.ts
index a4c7c0e4c6..da9ce71644 100644
--- a/web_src/js/utils/dom.ts
+++ b/web_src/js/utils/dom.ts
@@ -76,6 +76,11 @@ export function queryElemSiblings<T extends Element>(el: Element, selector = '*'
 
 // it works like jQuery.children: only the direct children are selected
 export function queryElemChildren<T extends Element>(parent: Element | ParentNode, selector = '*', fn?: ElementsCallback<T>): ArrayLikeIterable<T> {
+  if (window.vitest) {
+    // bypass the vitest bug: it doesn't support ":scope >"
+    const selected = Array.from<T>(parent.children as any).filter((child) => child.matches(selector));
+    return applyElemsCallback<T>(selected, fn);
+  }
   return applyElemsCallback<T>(parent.querySelectorAll(`:scope > ${selector}`), fn);
 }